All this talk of Notepad, FrontPage and Geocities is bringing back memories of several years ago when I first started this stuff

I remember when I first found GeoCities I was like "Wow, they just give you free space!?!".

RE: NotePad - I use a variant of NotePad - EditPad a lot for PHP Code. I don't ever use it for HTML - You can do manual editing of HTML in the panel in DreamWeaver

DreamWeaver is actually pretty smart about not making dirty code. There is also a thing you can run in it (Clean Up HTML) that will clean up any messes it did make. It makes creating complex tables a snap and is several times quicker than coding manually.

A lot of people find out I use DreamWeaver and tell me how dumb I am, I should be using NotePad and doing it "Old School". That may be fine at a geek contest for getting you a nice pocket protector or something, but in my book, if you can create a site in 1/5 of the time that looks relatively close and isn't unreasonably bloated, you're coming out ahead

Yes, DreamWeaver and others like it are expensive. But DreamWeaver has more than payed for itself by now. Also, someone mentioned its a resource hog - Pick up some more RAM I think you can get 256 MB for under $40, and that will more than do the trick. I have 768MB in my desktop and 384MB in my iBook right now DreamWeaver runs great, and doesn't slow down my system at all, even with a few IE sessions open, Outlook Express open, Excel, FireWorks, ICQ and a slew of other programs.

A pocket protector is a little plastic device you stick in your shirt pockets, then stick your pens in so you don't get ink all over your shirt from leaving the caps off

You can't necessarily build nicer looking sites with a WYSISWYG editor, but I've found I can do a better job with them. Also, when you use FireWorks and DreamWeaver together, you can create nicer stuff than you could before (at least thats how I was).

The main issue is time, and I guess that depends on every persons own definition of how long a page should take Also, when coding with NotePad, complex tables can get a bit confusing, I always end up with a page that looks like a 4 year old's work when I try and make complex tables in NotePad.

I have always been a notepad user but since my accident that left me a quadriplegic with one half decent finger inputting text is hard enough so hand coding HTML is too much work. Ok I know I could still breakout Notepad and hand code a site but it would take me a year to get out 1 page. LOL

I now use Adobe Golive to lend me a hand. (no pun intended) LOL

I have always been an Adobe guy and when they came out with a WYSIWYG editor it seemed only normal to with it. I really enjoy using it, especially sine the newest version is pretty integrated with all my other Adobe products I have.
The one bad thing about using this type of editor is you sometimes forget some hand coding. Yep it's true, if you don't use it you will lose it. LOL

Golive is pretty good in not messing with code you input manually and it's pretty good with HTML. I have only had to go in a couple times to have to add a little extra to a script that it makes.
It also has some really cool actions that really help do things faster.

When I started learning HTML, I started in notepad. There is a funny reason why...

I knew absolutely NOTHING about design, and I didn't even know what HTML was, and I just thought thta all pages were made with notepad. I am not joking! I read somehere that all you have to do is save the file as .html and it will load as a web page.

All my coding was done this way, and I honestly learned from looking at the source of other peoples sites. I never bothered to look up tutorials. I just didn't think of it, but I eventually cottoned on *ROFLMO*

That was only 12 months ago.

About 6 months ago, I started looking at tutorials. I found out about tables and frames, and I was hooked

Four months ago, I found Arachnophelia. WOW! I thought... I was running around my chair! Look at this GREAT new technology! I am actually laughing now as I am typing.

That is when I started actually searching the net, and finding out about everything that I can get my hands on. I am very good with most aspects of basic design, and I am also hosting 4 ikonboards for FREE for members of my website. I just love to help people

Now I use 1stPage and I have never ever used a WYSIWYG. I have downloaded them, but I just deleted them after fiddling for 1/2 an hour or so. It is SO annoying when you can just load 1st page and start writing HTML right off the top of your head.

I usually cut and past code that I have written, from previous pages that I have made. This saves heaps of time. I really like to start with a fresh clean page, and create my sites keystroke by keystroke. I enjoy it very much. Once I get one complete page, the others just need to be adjusted, because I use the first one as a template.

1stPage also has many options. I am able to click once, and a good table layout is set. I just add all the cellspacing, heights widths etc... and it has some great javascripts, and even CGI scripts.

I would recommend 1stPage for ANYONE, even people that started HTML yesterday afternooon. I would also recommend it to an professional web designer.

It also runs pretty well on my ancient 150MHZ that I have grown out of BIGTIME! It was fine for what I was doing with it 12 months ago...

I use emacs (a standard editor that comes with UNIX systems, but is also available for Windows) to edit my HTML. It is a text editor with pretty advanced functionality, e.g. regular expression search and replace. I also like its keyboard shortcuts for rapid movement, e.g. Ctrl+Down to go down one paragraph, Alt+Right to go forward one word.

One disadvantage of emacs is that it was designed by UNIX geeks for UNIX geeks---it's not easy to learn. I had to sit down at with the tutorial for an hour to become basically functional in emacs. One would have an easier time getting started with TextPad.

I haven't really tried out WYSIWYG editors before; I do believe that there are good ones, but there's two reasons why they're not so useful to me:

(1) My websites are dynamically generated (e.g. from a MySQL database). I program in Apache::ASP, which has HTML embedded with the programming logic. So, I have to use a text editor to edit it. (If I used a template based system such as Template Toolkit, maybe I could edit the HTML using an HTML editor. I've never tried template systems before, but lately I've been developing websites with non-programmers so I'm thinking about learning it.)

(2) My web designs are minimal; I don't bother with fancy graphics because a. I'm not an artist, b. fancy pages load slower; the visitors are here to see my content, not my design, and c. the time I save by not making fancy graphics is time that I can spend on improving the content of the site. Since my web designs are simple, I won't get confused as to which TABLE tag ends where, etc. The most complicated design I've ever made is http://www.animewallpapers.com/

I was just a humble plumber when I learned HTML. I first liked coffeecup then found 1st Page 2000. These wsywigs taught me how to read HTML. After I learned how to read HTML I figured out how to write in HTML. Now I only use wysiwigs for design layout and I use notepad with WS_FTP pro to edit and update my pages.

I chose "Other" to represent UltraEdit Pro. I'm surprised that wasn't listed on the poll, as it's one of the top-rated text HTML editors out there. It's similar to TextPad from what I hear (but better of course

Excuse me guys for being a little rude, but I find it silly to use Notepad to built a big site nowdays. I am not saying that WYSIWYG editors is a gift from god and everyone should use them.

Personally I use Dreamweaver CAREFULLY. I know HTML and can handle most tasks either writing the code or using DW. I always check my pages for mistakes and when something doesn't work the way I want it to, I always read the code.

It is a lot of pain to write :
<table width="90" border="1" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="2">
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</table>
when you can do it by pressing 2 buttons in an editor.
Again, code is the power but why not use a program to make our life easier. It's like not using a debugger because you want to do it the "old way".